The China problem

Imagine you're on a train. You're shoveling coal into the boiler. Someone comes up to you and says, "Gee, that coal you're shoveling in is dirty and inefficient. But look, I have some super-coal. It's a bit more expensive, but it's a lot cleaner, so you won't be showering soot on everyone around you. And it's a little more efficient, so you might find that you use less, and you'll make back much or all of the money you pay out for this super-coal."

You might decide it was worth giving it a try; you might not. Either way, you're riding a developed-country train, so you've got the luxury of making that choice.

If, on the other hand, you're riding in China's train, there's only one response you can make, which is: "Great! Give me the super-coal. If I have your super-coal, my regular coal, and we throw in the furniture from the dining car - we can make it to the next town!"

China is making huge investments in renewable energy. But renewables don't displace fossil fuels in China; it's not shutting down coal plants. In fact, it's building more coal plants TOO. It has to. To meet economic growth and development targets - including fairly reasonable things like electrifying the large chunks of its population that don't even have power yet - China needs to throw everything it can at the wall.

That's the China problem, and that's why the logic of emissions reduction in China is different from either the developed world or the rest of the developing world.

As a side note, India has some of the same problem (it has a lot of people to electrify) but possibly not as badly (because it's economic development path is more services-oriented and less heavy industry-oriented than China's is).